How can employment relations in global value networks be managed towards social responsibility?

Publikation: Beiträge in ZeitschriftenZeitschriftenaufsätzeForschungbegutachtet

Authors

Ensuring social responsibility is a continued challenge in value creation processes that are globally dispersed among multiple organizations. We use the literature on interorganizational network management to shed new light on the question of how employment relations can be managed more responsibly in global value networks (GVNs). In contrast to the structure-oriented global value chain perspective, a network management perspective highlights the practices by which employment relations can be addressed in the context of plural forms of network governance. Using examples of GVNs in the automotive and garment industries, we illustrate how the network management practices of selecting, allocating, regulating and evaluating can enable lead firms and suppliers to effectively deal with social responsibility challenges on the level of whole networks. We also discuss how network management practices can handle field-level and firm-level constraints for the management of multi-employer relations in GVNs.
OriginalspracheEnglisch
ZeitschriftHuman Relations
Jahrgang71
Ausgabenummer12
Seiten (von - bis)1640-1665
Anzahl der Seiten26
ISSN0018-7267
DOIs
PublikationsstatusErschienen - 01.12.2018
Extern publiziertJa

Bibliographische Notiz

Funding Information:
We are indebted to Leonhard Dobusch, Michael Fichter, Rami Kaplan, Anja Kirsch and Miriam Wilhelm for their valuable comments in the development of this article. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers and Juliane Reinecke for their inspiring feedback and guidance in the review process. We gratefully acknowledge funding by the Volkswagen Foundation for the project ‘Changes in the Governance of Garment Global Production Networks: Lead Firm, Supplier and Institutional Responses to the Rana Plaza Disaster’ under the ‘European and Global Challenges Program’ for parts of the garment industry case description. Parts of the automotive industry case description draw on research funded by Hans-Böckler-Foundation, Düsseldorf (research grant 2011-466-2).

Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge funding by the Volkswagen Foundation for the project ‘Changes in the Governance of Garment Global Production Networks: Lead Firm, Supplier and Institutional Responses to the Rana Plaza Disaster’ under the ‘European and Global Challenges Program’ for parts of the garment industry case description. Parts of the automotive industry case description draw on research funded by Hans-Böckler-Foundation, Düsseldorf (research grant 2011-466-2).

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.

    Fachgebiete

  • Betriebswirtschaftslehre - corporate social responsibility, labour standards, multi-employer relations, network governance, network management

Links

DOI